Do you have a temporary worker, virtual assistant (VA) or intern that you want to be able to send email using an official company email address, but aren’t interested in paying an additional monthly subscription fee for a permanent Google Apps / G Suite mailbox?
In this tech tip, learn how to setup a G Suite address for free. At the end of this tutorial you will have an email address a temporary worker, virtual assistant or intern can use to send email on behalf of your business.
There are four steps to setup a free G Suite address that a temporary worker can use to both send and receive email on behalf of your company:
1. Setup a Gmail account
The email address of the Gmail account we choose or setup in this step will be added as a member of our Google Group in Step 3. It is strongly recommended that you setup a new Gmail account that you have ownership of. This will allow you to limit access to company contacts and correspondence when the temporary worker’s tenure or assignment ends. However, if you are comfortable with the temporary worker keeping access to previous emails sent and received on behalf of your organization, you can use a Gmail account they already own.
2. Turn on Less Secure Apps for new Gmail account
In a later step we will configure the “Send Mail As” feature in Gmail to send email on behalf of another email address. “Send Mail As” requires an SMTP server to send outbound email for another address. We will use the built-in SMTP server of our new Gmail account. Before we can use the built-in SMTP server, we must configure the Gmail account to allow access from applications that do not use OAuth authentication protocol which are referred to as Less Secure Apps. Ironically, Less Secure Apps includes the Gmail “Send Mail As” feature.
3. Setup a Google Group
Google Groups are a robust feature available in Google Apps / G Suite. We won’t go into detail about what all Google Groups are capable of here. The capability that is important for this tutorial is Google Groups ability to forward email. As it’s name implies, Google Groups consist of one or more members. A member can be any email address; either another account within your organization or even an external address such as mycompany.intern@gmail.com. And, most importantly, each Google Group can be assigned an email address associated with our Google Apps / G Suite domain such as pluckett@mycompany.com. When an email is sent to our Google Group address of pluckett@mycompany.com, the Google Groups feature forwards the email to each of its members.
4. Configure the Gmail account to send and receive email with the new address
Gmail includes a feature called “Send mail as” that allows us to send email from another address we own. We will use this feature to send email using the address we setup for our new Google Group.
Setup A New Gmail Account
1. Navigate to https://gmail.com and follow the prompts to create a new Gmail account.
2. Record the email address and password for use in the next step.
Turn On Less Secure Apps
1. Login to the new Gmail account.
2. Navigate to https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps and click the toggle switch to change “Allow less secure apps” to ON.
3. Navigate to https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and click on the “Continue” button to allow access to your Google Account.
Setup A Google Group
1. Log into the Google Admin portal as an administrator.
https://google.com/a/++putyourdomainhere++ (e.g. https://google.com/a/mycompany.com)
NOTE: You must log on as an administrator. If your account does not have administrative privileges, please consult your administrator.
2. Click “Groups” in Admin Console
3. Click “Create Groups” icon
4. Create Group
Give the group a name (e.g. Intern – Paul Luckett)
Create group email address (e.g. paul.luckett@mycompany.com)
Click the Access Level drop-down and select “Team”
Check the box next to “Also allow anyone on the internet to post messages”
NOTE: That last setting is very important. It is what allows external contacts to send email to our new Google Group.
Click “Create“.
5. Add Member(s)
Click the “Add members” icon
Type the email address of the new Gmail account you created and click “Add To Group”
6. Confirm Member(s) Addition
Refresh the page of the Google Group.
Confirm the newly added address is listed under Members.
Configure the Gmail account to send and receive email with the Google Group address
1. Click the settings icon 
(gear).
2. Click “Settings”.
3. Click “Accounts and Import”
4. Click “Add another email address”
5. In the pop-up window that appears enter the name and the Google Group email address you would like to appear when sending outbound email and click the “Next Step” button.
6. Enter the following for SMTP server details and click the “Add Account” button:
SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com
Username: ++newgmail@gmail.com++
Password: ++your-gmail-password++
NOTE: Enter the email address and password of the Gmail account you setup in Step 1 out of 4. This is NOT the Google Group email address.
Port:587
Select “Secured connection using TLS”
7. The next window will request a verification code that was emailed to the new Google Groups address.
NOTE: This email should have been sent to the email address of the new Gmail account if it was added to the Google Group in step 3 out of 4.
8. Open the inbox of the new Gmail account and copy the Confirmation Code.
NOTE: Do not close the separate email verification window that was already open.
9. Go back to the email verification window, paste the confirmation code and click the “Verify” button.
10. Set “Send mail as” address as default (OPTIONAL)
You can setup your Gmail account to automatically send email using the newly added “Send mail as” address. Each time a new email is composed it will send as the Google Address by default.
Click the settings icon (gear) > Click “Settings” > Click “Accounts and Import” > Click “make default” next to the Google Group address.
Send Email Using Send Mail As Address
1. Log into the new Gmail account.
2. Click the “Compose” button.
3. Verify that the address you want to send as is displayed in the “From” drop-down.
4. If the desired address is not displayed, click the arrow next to the “From” drop-down and select it.
